So I was at the Tower of Terror the other day and on my way home I just had to stop at JoAnn's and begin making these Tower Ears! I'm so excited I'm posting before they are even totally finished. As my more Disney obsessed readers may know the Tower is closing at the beginning of the year to become Guardians of the Galaxy and that is so very sad. There's a huge final send off and I just had to add my little token of tribute to one of my favorite attractions. :sniff:
We have the black felt at home, but I needed some burgundy fabric, some gold ribbon, gold puffy paint and some (affiliate link)
Heat and Bond.
I began with my ear base and then marked out and cut the burgundy fabric for the bellhop hat portion of the ears. I just started with a corner of the fabric and pinned and cut around the ears so that they were perfectly sized. I wanted each segment to be roughly 1/3 of the height of the ear.
Once I had the pieces sized and cut out I unpinned them and laid them out on the edge of the fabric to create a matching set the same size. With the ear folded in half I pinned them back on one side of the fabric only. I folded the bottom edge of the material under to create a straight line across the edge of the bottom side of the bellhop hat, while the top portion of the ear went all the way up and rounded. I wanted it to sit at a jaunty angle so the pieces are cut on a diagonal. I then pinned pieces matching to the other side again on just one side of the fabric so that when I pinned them together and turned them it would look like one piece.
I then sewed each piece in place on the ear with a straight stitch along the edge the top of the hat is only sewn along the bottom edge but the bottom of the hat is sewn along top and bottom keeping that turned under edge in place. I then cut and pinned pieces of ribbon in place. I pinned the ribbon so that the black portion of the hat is slightly smaller than the burgundy portions.
I then sewed the ribbons in place being very careful to stay just inside the wire edged portion of the ribbon. If you catch the wire with your machine it can rip it out of the ribbon and pull it in to the bobbin making a horrible noise and a royal pain to remove. (Can you tell it happened to me and I've totally been there?) Then being very careful to match ribbons and edges I pinned right sides together and prepared to sew the ears closed. You want to leave both a hole to turn the ear and mark a portion along the bottom edge that is wide enough for your headband to be inserted. I sewed these with a 4/8 seam allowance. It ended up making the ears a bit smaller than I'd like I'll definitely cut them a bit larger and use a 3/8 allowance the next time. (Yes that is a rubber band around the seam allowance marking that I intend to use it is an amazing tip that I learned recently and am so excited about.)
Once you're done sewing trim seam allowance and clip curves, I like to use pinking shears so that I trim and clip at the same time. Then using that access hole you left in the side turn your ear inside out. Use a pencil or tiny scissors to help push out the curves and turn the ear perfectly. TaDa! One ear mostly done!
For the second ear I wanted the Hollywood Tower Hotel logo. I found a nice clear image of the logo and then pinned it to a piece of scrap old-fashioned looking fabric I had laying around and cut it out. I took a small piece of the burgundy fabric and followed the directions on the (affiliate link)
Heat and Bond to adhere it to the fabric. If you aren't familiar with Heat and Bond it is essentially iron-on fabric adhesive. What you do is cut a piece of fabric and then match a similar sized piece of this material to the fabric iron on the sticky side and then draw, trace or cut your image, shape, whatever on the paper side. When you peel off the paper and then iron it to the fabric you want it to stick to it seals it in place lickety split. There's a red and a purple the purple can be sewn after sticking the red can not. I just kind of hand cut some pieces to make the letters for the Hollywood Tower Hotel logo. (If you don't know Tower lore, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror building is actually called the Hollywood Tower Hotel hence the HTH which throws some newer guests off) I then sewed the patch onto the ear single sided I wasn't sure if I had to do any sewing after or what all I was doing but in the future I think I'll just use the Heat and Bond to seal that on too and save myself the trouble. as you can tell I missed a few places while sewing and kinda slipped a little piece of the adhesive in there anyway. I then lined the logo with some gold puffy paint and went to bed. The next day I sewed and turned that ear the same way as the other.
I fed the ear onto my headband and then marked where the line would need to be to sew it closed with a pin. I sewed that line on both ears and then stuffed them with fluff (
poly-fill). After they were filled I sewed my turning hole closed by stitching in the seam by hand. I then attached the ears to the headband. If you want Mickey style ears then you are done. WHOO!
But alas I wanted Minnie style ears so I had to make a bow. :(
To make the bow I cut out a piece of burgundy fabric about 3 inches by 5 inches. (I ended up needing two pieces this size cause I totally messed things up and ended up making them differently than originally planned.) If you want the front and back of your bow to look the same one piece about 3 by 10 inches if you want to have the black and gold on the front and just plain burgundy on the back two separate pieces each 3x5 inches. Then I cut out a piece of black fabric that was about 2x5 inches. I turned the edges of the black fabric under and stitched them to make a clean edge. I cut pieces of ribbon 5 inches long and then sewed the ribbon and the black fabric to the burgundy fabric. with right sides together sew the two pieces together leaving a small hole at the bottom to turn. Press. Then using an accordion fold in the center hand stitch the bow. Finish with a small piece of gold ribbon. Hot glue everything in place.
Minnie Ears!
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